The Program in Race, Law & History at Michigan Law will award up to five 2014-15 academic year fellowships to students enrolled in J.D., Ph.D. and other terminal graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Fellows will participate in the on-going work of the Program, including workshops, conferences, and symposia. They will also receive financial support for independent research and conference travel. Fellows will present their research findings at the Program’s annual winter term fellows’ symposium where they will receive comments from senior scholars in their field.

Fellows in Race, Law & History participate in the Program events, which in 2014-15 include the conference The Allure of the Judicial Archive on April 10, 2015. Fellows receive a $2,500 grant for research expenses and toward travel and accommodation expenses connected with attendance at the annual meeting of the American Society of Legal History (scheduled for November 6-9, 2014 in Denver, Colorado). The fellowship period runs from October 2014 through September 2015. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a terminal graduate degree program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and must be in residence in Ann Arbor for the fellowship term of October 2014 through April 2015.

We welcome applications from graduate students with independent research proposals within the scope of the Program in Race, Law & History. Applications must include a 500-word research proposal, a proposed budget itemizing expected expenses, a C.V. or resume, and the name and contact information for one faculty recommender. Applications will be evaluated by an ad-hoc faculty committee based upon quality of research proposal; relevance of the research proposal to program areas of the Program in Race, Law & History; support of faculty; and academic distinction. (Note, the fellowship does not cover tuition or living expenses.) Applications are due via email on September 15, 2014 to RaceLawHistoryFellowships@umich.edu. Fellowship recipients will be announced on October 1, 2014.

The Michigan Law Program in Race, Law & History is an interdisciplinary program dedicated to research and teaching at the intersection of these three lines of intellectual inquiry. Through new scholarship, the training of students in law and history, and collaborations with colleagues and institutions at Michigan and beyond, the Program provides a unique historical perspective on the ongoing salience of race in our world. Our work is grounded in scholarship that has established race as at the core of interpreting the history of the Americas. Race in this sense is understood as a set of ideas that rely upon understandings of religion, culture, labor, biology, and politics, and have both rationalized profound inequality and galvanized movements for social justice. Scholars have charted the connections between legal culture and slavery and its abolition, the emergence of democratic states, imperialism, social welfare policy, and movements for civil and human rights. Our work is linked to the broad trends in social and cultural history, exploring how race and law have come together to shape ideas about home, family, marriage, gender, and sexuality. The interests of the core faculty reflect many of the defining concerns of the Program in Race, Law & History. We are historians of race in the United States and Latin America, of law and the transformation of the state, of citizenship and claims-making, of Atlantic world slavery, and of race and visual culture. By offering foundational courses in American Legal History and Legislation, specialized seminars in the history of slavery and citizenship and in Critical Race Theory, as well as an intensive faculty-student Legal History Workshop, the Program permits students to develop their interests and expertise in these fields. Many of our students take the insights from the Program in Race, Law & History into the world of legal practice. In areas from civil rights litigation and criminal defense to judicial clerkships, our students draw upon their work with the Program to better analyze present-day dynamics of race in historical terms. Some continue their studies in M.A. and Ph.D. programs that fully explore the interdisciplinary dimensions of the Program in Race, Law & History. Still others will extend their work with the Program into academic careers, writing and teaching in colleges, law schools, and universities. Our work at Michigan Law assumes national and international scope through our collaborations and our publications. This vision was reflected in our inaugural April 2011 conference, "'We Must First Take Account': A Conference on Race, Law, and History in the Americas," and expanded through our second major conference, “ Proclaiming Emancipation” (October 2013). The work of scholars new to the field of race, law, and history is the centerpiece for this international gathering. Our collaborators include the American Society for Legal History and the Legal History Consortium (comprised of Michigan Law and the law schools of the University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, and University of Pennsylvania).

About the ProgramThe Michigan Law Program in Race, Law & History is an interdisciplinary program dedicated to research and teaching at the intersection of these three lines of intellectual inquiry. Through new scholarship, the training of students in law and history, and collaborations with colleagues and institutions at Michigan and beyond, the Program provides a unique historical perspective on the ongoing salience of race in our world. Our work is grounded in scholarship that has established race as at the core of interpreting the history of the Americas. Race in this sense is understood as a set of ideas that rely upon understandings of religion, culture, labor, biology, and politics, and have both rationalized profound inequality and galvanized movements for social justice. Scholars have charted the connections between legal culture and slavery and its abolition, the emergence of democratic states, imperialism, social welfare policy, and movements for civil and human rights. Our work is linked to the broad trends in social and cultural history, exploring how race and law have come together to shape ideas about home, family, marriage, gender, and sexuality.

The fellowships in Race, Law & History are made possible through the support of Professor Tom and Ruth Green and Faith (AB '69) and Stephen (AB '66, JD '69) Brown.